Breadline USA: The Hidden Scandal of American Hunger and How to Fix It - Hardcover

Abramsky, Sasha

3.72

36 ratings by Goodreads

9780981709116: Breadline USA: The Hidden Scandal of American Hunger and How to Fix It

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0981709117 ISBN 13: 9780981709116

Publisher: Routledge, 2009

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Trapped in a triangle of the housing market collapse, rising energy costs, and an increasingly dysfunctional healthcare system, America's working poor are now battling an even more formidable enemy: hunger. This time, the battle is taking place well outside of the media spotlight, which has focused on obesity, another food-related epidemic affecting the poor. Breadline USA tells the stories of Americans in all types of communities who struggle to put any type of food on the table come the end of the month when money runs out and the social safety net isnt there to catch them.

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From the Back Cover:

Abramsky writes in the best tradition of Barbara Ehrenreich, Studs Terkel, and John Steinbeck. The fruit of his patient and compassionate research, Breadline USA, is required reading for all of us concerned to banish, forever, the long hidden legacy of hunger in America.
--Raj Patel, Stuffed and Starved

We have come a long way since the Dustbowl era, when hunger was a pressing national concern. Or have we? Abramsky challenges our conventional wisdom with an impassioned plea to take hunger and food production seriously again. In his book, hunger becomes a way to gauge where we are as a civilized nation. Breadline USA is an eye-opening account and, more important, a call to action.
--Sudhir Venkatesh, Gang Leader for a Day

Twenty-five million Americans--nearly 9 percent of the U.S. population--rely on food pantries. Another 13 million aren't linked to a food distribution network, and 14 million children are at risk of going hungry on any given day. Moreover, the faltering economy is increasing the number of American families that don't know where their next meals are coming from.

Breadline USA treats this crisis not only as matter of failed policies, but also as a portrait of real human suffering. Investigative reporter Sasha Abramsky focuses attention on the people behind the statistics--the families caught up in circumstances beyond their control. Breadline USA is a vivid reminder of the fate to which many more Americans may be subject without urgent action.

From the Inside Flap:

Trapped in the triangle of the housing and financial market collapse, energy price instability, and an increasingly dysfunctional health care system, a growing number of American families are fighting an even more formidable enemy: hunger. Their battle against food insecurity has only recently begun to register in the mainstream media, which has focused more on obesity and the environmental impacts of the food production system.

Part first-person account, part reportage, Breadline USA tells the stories of American families in all types of communities who struggle to put any type of food on the table. As Abramsky shows, the struggle is especially acute at the end of each month, when money runs out and the social safety net isn't there to catch them. His solutions, which target the major sources of economic insecurity for these families, are more necessary now than at any time since the Great Depression.

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